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Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | UK | MI6 boss in Facebook entry row - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8134807.stm

MI6 John Sawers Facebook

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns. The Mail on Sunday said his wife put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site. The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.
  • Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme: "Are you leading the news with that? The fact that there's a picture that the head of the MI6 goes swimming - wow, that really is exciting. "It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks, for goodness sake let's grow up.
  • Sir John is due to replace Sir John Scarlett as head of the overseas Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He has been the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN since 2007. Before that he was political director at the Foreign Office, an envoy in Baghdad and a foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was in that post from 1999 to 2001 and was involved in the Kosovo conflict and Northern Ireland peace process. Elsewhere overseas he worked in the British embassy in Washington, as an ambassador in Cairo and to South Africa from 1988 and 1991 when apartheid was ending. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version Print Sponsor BBC.adverts.write("storyprintsponsorship"); BBC.adverts.show("storyprintsponsorship"); bbc_adsense_slot = "adsense_middle";"pt" == "us" ? bbc_adsense_country = "pt" : bbc_adsense_country = "rest"; google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);Ads by GoogleZON TVCABOAdira já ao 3Play ZON TVCABO e veja os seus canais preferidos!www.ZON.pt/Pacotes_ZON3Spanish Lessons For YouStep-By-Step Audio Lessons. Get Them Now! Learn Fast.www.How-To-Speak.com/SpanishUK Embassy Visa ServicesFast track your visa application. Appoint Migration Expert today.migrationexpert.com/UK BBC.adverts.show("adsense_middle"); BBC.adverts.write("mpu");Advertisementhttp://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/bbccom.live.site.news/news_uk_content;sectn=news;ctype=content;news=uk;adsense_middle=adsense_middle;adsense_mpu=adsense_mpu;rsi=J08781_10008;rsi=J08781_10
Pedro Gonçalves

MI6 and CIA heard Iraq had no active WMD capability ahead of invasion | World news | gu... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims

Iraq War

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 18 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.
  • British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries.
  • Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, told the CIA's station chief in Paris at the time, Bill Murray, through an intermediary that Iraq had "virtually nothing" in terms of WMD.Sabri said in a statement that the Panorama story was "totally fabricated".
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  • three months before the war an MI6 officer met Iraq's head of intelligence, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti, who also said that Saddam had no active WMD. The meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, took place days before the British government published its now widely discredited Iraqi weapons dossier in September 2002.
  • Butler says of the use of intelligence: "There were ways in which people were misled or misled themselves at all stages."
Argos Media

The fixer in the shadows who may emerge as Egypt's leader - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...y-emerge-as-Egypts-leader.html

Egypt Omar Suleiman EGIS Hosni Mubarak

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • General Omar Suleiman, the director of Egypt's intelligence service, is virtually unknown outside his home country, yet he is one of the world's most powerful spy chiefs – and an expert in solving intractable problems.
  • Soon, Gen Suleiman may emerge from the shadows and become Egypt's new leader. President Hosni Mubarak, who has dominated the Arab world's largest country for almost 28 years, will turn 81 in May. He trusts hardly anyone and relies on a tiny circle of loyalists. Gen Suleiman is by far the most significant member of this privileged handful. A western diplomat in Cairo rated his "influence, power and access" as simply "incredible". Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian commentator who helped found the country's first independent daily newspaper, called him "the second most powerful man after Mubarak" and said he was the only serious contender for the top job.
  • Gen Suleiman is also a valued partner of the British government. Any British minister passing through Cairo will always ask to see him. His department, the Egyptian General Intelligence Service (EGIS), maintains close links with MI6 and has particular expertise in counter-terrorism. The diplomat described the organisation as "impressive" and "well-resourced", commanding a "big foreign presence through their embassies overseas".
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  • By the time he was made director of EGIS, in 1993, two Islamist groups, the Gama'a Islamiya and al-Jihad, were conducting a campaign of bombings and assassinations.
  • In 1995, the extremists came within an ace of killing Mr Mubarak when 11 assassins opened fire on his limousine in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. The original plan had been to use a normal, soft-skinned vehicle. But the previous day, Gen Suleiman had insisted on flying an armoured car to Ethiopia. This undoubtedly saved Mr Mubarak's life. As the bullets ricocheted off the protected vehicle, Gen Suleiman was sitting beside his president. This searing experience forged the bond of trust between them.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel remains silent over use of forged British passports in Dubai assassination | UK ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ation-forged-british-passports

israel mossad dubai uk

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Dubai police chief declared that he was "99%, if not 100% certain" of Mossad's involvement, and called on Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli spy chief, Meir Dagan
  • SOCA is concentrating specifically on the misuse of British passports, it is understood that MI6 is conducting a broader, parallel probe into Israeli involvement
  • US also looked likely to be drawn into the affair for the first time, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Mabhouh's assassins had used American-registered credit cards to buy plane tickets.
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  • a further two Irish passports were used in the assassination, bringing the total number of Irish travel documents involved to five as speculation grew that the size of the hit squad was bigger than the 11 originally reported.
  • In Dubai, however, the emirate's police chief, Dahi Khalfan Tamim, called on local television for Interpol to issue "a red notice against the head of Mossad … as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now."
  • British officials said last night it was too early to speculate on what measures Britain might take against Israel if the government remained uncooperative.One possible consequence could be Britain's response to an Israeli request to change its 'universal jurisdiction' law on war crimes, under which a London magistrates court issued an arrest warrant in December for Israel's former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, for her role in the Gaza offensive a year earlier.
  • Sir Richard Dalton, Britain's ambassador to Iran from 2003 to 2006 said: "All this just says how pathetic and ludicrous the claim is that Israel is Britain's strategic partner."
  • The Dubai authorities said they had asked Britain for assistance at the end of January, but the foreign office insists it was only informed of the British connection hours before it was made public.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran unveils 'faster' uranium centrifuges - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8611864.stm

Iran Nuclear Proliferation Mohamed ElBaradei

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Iran's president has unveiled new "third-generation" centrifuges that its nuclear chief says can enrich uranium much faster than current technology.The centrifuges would have separation power six times that of the first generation, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech marking National Nuclear Day.
  • The new technology could shorten the time it takes to build a nuclear bomb.
  • In a BBC interview, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said Western nations were seeking harsher sanctions "out of frustration". "I don't think Iran is developing, or we have new information that Iran is developing, a nuclear weapon today," he said. "There is a concern about Iran's future intentions, but even if you talk to MI6 or the CIA, they will tell you they are still four or five years away from a weapon. So, we have time to engage." He said it was a "question of building trust between Iran and the US". "That will not happen until the two sides sit around the negotiating table and address their grievances. Sooner or later that will happen."
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  • The new models are more advanced than the P1 centrifuge - adapted from a 1970s design, reportedly acquired by Iran on the black market in the 1980s, and prone to breakdowns - in use at the Natanz enrichment facility, in the central province of Isfahan. BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London, says nuclear experts point out that the key question is how many of the third-generation centrifuges Iran can produce.
  • There have already been technical problems with the existing models, so whether it can quickly put the new one into mass production and operation remains to be seen, our correspondent says.
  • Most of Iran's uranium is enriched to a level of 3.5%, but it requires 20% enriched uranium for its Tehran research reactor, which produces medical isotopes. A bomb would require uranium enriched to at least 90%.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report in February that Iran had achieved enrichment levels of up to 19.8%, which added to its concerns about the "possible military dimensions" of its nuclear programme.
  • Experts say the technical leap required to get to 90% enrichment from 20% is relatively straightforward, because it becomes easier at higher levels. Going from the natural state of 0.7% enrichment to 20% takes 90% of the total energy required, they add.
  • The IAEA report said 8,610 centrifuges had been installed in known enrichment facilities in Iran, of which 3,772 were operating.
  • Iran says it will eventually install more than 50,000 centrifuges at Natanz, and build 10 more enrichment facilities at protected sites.
Argos Media

Europe's 'Special Interrogations': New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland - SPIEGEL O... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,621450-2,00.html

US CIA Torture Poland Europe Aero Contractors Aleksander Kwasniewski Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Council of Europe Dick Marty Szymany Stare Kiejkuty

shared by Argos Media on 28 Apr 09 - Cached
  • For more than a year now, Warsaw public prosecutor Robert Majewski has been investigating former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller's government on allegations of abuse of office. At issue is whether sovereignty over Polish territory was relinquished, and whether former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his left-leaning Social Democratic government gave the CIA free reign over sections of the Stare Kiejkuty military base for the agency's extraterritorial torture interrogations.
  • "No European country is so sincerely and vigorously investigating former members of the government as is currently the case in Poland," says Wolfgang Kaleck from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin, which supports the investigations.
  • The public prosecutor's office has also launched a probe to determine whether the Polish intelligence agency made 20 of its agents available to the CIA, as was recently reported by the conservative Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita. A former CIA official confirmed this information to SPIEGEL. There was reportedly a document issued by the intelligence agency that mentioned both the 20 Polish agents and the transfer of the military base to the Americans. Two members of a parliamentary investigative committee in Warsaw had an opportunity to view this document in late 2005, but it has since disappeared.
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  • Similar conclusions were reached by the second investigative report on CIA kidnappings in Europe, which was submitted two years ago by the special investigator of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty
  • There are rumors circulating that one of the most important interrogators of Sheikh Mohammed, an American named Deuce Martinez -- the man who didn't torture him, but rather had the task of gently coaxing information out of him -- was in Poland at the time. That is the proof that's still missing.
  • Journalist Mariusz Kowalewski at Rzeczpospolita and two colleagues have been searching for months now for proof of the existence of a secret CIA base in Poland. The journalists have discovered flight record books from Szymany that had been declared lost, and based on refueling receipts and currency exchange rates, they have reconstructed flights and routes, and spoken with informants. Over the past few weeks, their newspaper and the television network TVP Info have revealed new details on an almost daily basis.
  • According to Marty's report, members of the former Polish military intelligence and counterintelligence agency, WSI, were given positions with the border police, customs and airport administration to safeguard the activities of the CIA. "The latest revelations in Poland fully corroborate my evidence, which is based on testimony by insiders and documents that have been leaked to me," says the investigator today. Now, under the "dynamic force of the truth" that Obama has unleashed, Marty says that Europeans must finally reveal "which governments tolerated and supported the illegal practices of the CIA."
  • "The order to give the CIA everything they needed came from the very top, from the president," a member of the Polish military intelligence agency told the Marty team in 2007. Kwasniewski denies this. He says that there was close intelligence corporation with the US, but no prisons on Polish soil.
  • It's very possible that the debate on torture and responsibility which is currently being conducted in the US will soon also reach Europe. After all, Germany granted the US flyover rights and dropped its bid to extradite 13 CIA operatives in the case of Khalid el-Masri, a German citizen who claims he was abducted by the Americans. The Italian intelligence agency allegedly assisted the CIA with the kidnapping in Milan of the Islamic cleric Abu Omar. Britain's intelligence agency, MI6, reportedly delivered information directly to CIA agents who were conducting interrogations in Morocco. And there are also reports of a secret prison in Romania.
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